For NotABoffin
But the point about the NPT is that it is supposedly international law.
No, it is a treaty, but I see your point. It ought to be binding. Ought and is don't always match.
If the provisions of a treaty are breached, the various signatories then have to figure out what to do about that.
Similar to international law, it is only as good as its enforcement.
As Courtney points out, if the UN (which I think boils down to the Big Five on the Security Council) cannot put together a consensus position on what to do about any such matter, not much gets done at the International level.
Any number of parties, or associations (see the non UN sanctioned NATO work on Serbia 1999) may still act, and accept the risks of not being seen as legitimate, which allegedly a blue helmet allows one to claim to be.
Iran is a signatory, whereas IIRC India, North Korea and the Red Sea Pedestrians are not.
Israel as well, which lead me back to your point on international law: it is neither very binding, nor very cohesive, if one can simply opt out by not signing up. For that matter, why not opt out by not following? Seems to boil down to the same thing.
As a signatory, Iran has disavowed the development and/or acquisition of nuclear weapons which it has not had prior to signature.
So? That signature was during the Shah's reign. I do not see Iran's continuity of government from then to now as being analogous to someone as stable, and interested in the rule of law, as, say, Sweden's. What they are doing is testing the limits of international consensus. They are not the first to play such games. It's an old story.
So, with various sanctions and hot air "The International Community" has "done something" but there unity of effort seems to have reached its limits. Such is realpolitik.
The organisation responsible for monitoring compliance with the NPT (the IAEA) has identified that there are valid concerns that Iran is not complying with the treaty it has signed and is asking for various issues to be clarified. Iran is responding to this with various obfuscations and a nuclear facility hardening programme that does nothing but increase suspicions.
Agree. A lovely illustration of the limitations of international law when such enforcement authority as exists can't agree on what to do about a breach.
The part of the UN responsible for enforcing international law (UNSC) has responded to this with a whole range of sanctions etc, as have other "blocs" such as US, UK GE & FR, as they are entitled (should that be required?) to do under international law.
Per my point above, they'll only do what they can agree to do, and as often as not bicker amongst themselves.
Now in response to this, Iran can do a number of things, such as open up all facilties for full inspection & monitoring or unilaterally withdraw from the NPT.
They have other choices, such as do as they are now doing and test the limits of international sentiment for and against them. This is called politics. At present, this course of action seems to cause them little to no harm.
They have (understandably) chosen to stay within the treaty but not accede to the inspections requests.
Politics is a game played for keeps.
Whether Iran is justified in wanting nukes (and I agree with Widger) is irrelevant, they have forsworn them under treaty.
So? There is no honor among thieves, nor among politicians, and I often wonder if there's much difference.
Not a situation I believe exists with the denizens of the new Uncle Kim's happy land, or the Red Sea Pedestrians. I appreciate all this is nice legal theory and as such fairly naive, but the point then becomes, does the UN enforce international law or does it give it a stiff ignoring if it all gets a bit difficult, which tends to happen with the really important things?
If it doesn't, what is the UN for?
Is it to disappear in a puff of logic?
UN tries to be all things to all nations, and has many great uses in the health and humanitarian arenas, and sometimes for collective security. It's imperfect, but it may disappear one day if its other uses erode as badly as its collective security role has.
Courtney:
There may be a few assumptions in the SciAm article that makes me think that their scientific basis is not fully justified (or, maybe, not stated), but I understand it's a magazine for the educated masses AND that they have an agendum.
However, I don't think anyone can argue that the effects of a 'local', limited, nuclear exchange are not local. The +49 day map of smoke particles, if not exact, isn't likely to be too far wrong.
What it doesn't cover, for some reason, is the spread of nuclear contamination. That number of small yield weapons would put a lot (I'm not even going to start working it out) of radionucleides into the atmosphere. Some of those have short half lives, but create a severe and (near) immediate hazard to life. Some have very long half lives and could present a long-lasting and global threat to life.
Agree.
I thought they were smart to limit the scope of their article to danger they could compare to the volcanoes, to avoid being accused of scare mongering.
I completely agree that there are added problems of contamination, but estimating its effects seem, to me, considerbably more difficult due to the wide variation on previous contamination incidents (Hiroshima, Chernobyl, and such).
As the Chrernobyl incident showed, or how Hiroshima has recoverd, there is recovery from a local poisoning. What they were trying to point out was a global climate perturbation of that magnitude would have out of scale impacts on fundamental food source that currently are underwriting the global food suppply. The political fall out of, their estimate, a billion being left to starve staggers my imagination.
Again, their analysis may have more holes than not, but I appreciate their trying to compare a like-to-like issue: the measured climate impact of Pinatubo and the expected climate impact of X amount more stuff in the air from such a nuclear exchange.
It's the old "consequences far exceed the benefits" illustration for policy makers to consider.